Monday, February 3, 2014

Spanish for English

My Spanish is getting a lot better. I
made a goal to not speak English anymore and it has helped me a lot. Yesterday,
one of the assistants called me and was speaking to me in English so I decided
to speak English back and I couldn´t. The words just didn´t come to my head. I
guess when Spanish comes in, English has to leave.

This week we couldn´t put any
appointments with people so we decided to focus on finding more. We heard
stories of missionaries offering tours of the chapel so we tried it. We had a
table full of pamphlets and stuff, we had a short video that people can watch
and some other nice touches here and there. We taught so much in so little
time. I was really surprised by how many people wanted to do a tour. We hung
out in the street and just asked people if they wanted to do it.

So now we have a good pool of people to
teach. Now the key is to be able to find them when they are home.

We started to teach a guy named Juan.
His wife is a member and wants more than anything to be sealed in the temple
with him but he is a fisherman and spends all his time out at sea and doesn´t
want anything to do with nothing. He also has been smoking since he was 8. The
doctor said he is going to die soon if he doesn´t stop but that’s not important
to him. We finally got the chance to teach him the plan of salvation and it
changed him a little. We have been fasting and praying that he can understand
why he is here. It is kind of a sad situation but when we taught him that he
has potential more than just in this world, he took a big step in his life and
we saw a little hint of desire to change.

We also found a group of 4 kids that are
about 16 years old. They were hanging out playing minecraft and they let us in
to talk. We asked one of the kids what his thoughts were about god and he told
us that he believes there is a god but he thinks most people go to church and
pretend to believe out of fear of not fitting in with a family or the culture.
Another kid said that he is pretty sure that there is a god but everybody talks
about feeling the spirit but he has never felt it and he doubts that the people
shouting and shaking their hands in church are actually feeling it. They blew
us away by how spot on they were. We explained a little bit about the
difference between Christianity the culture and Christianity the religion and
they really liked it. We are getting together again this Tuesday.

I have never mentioned how people greet each
other here. Between guys they first shake hands, then hug, then shake hands
again to finish it off. It was a little weird at first but I like it. Between
girls and guys, they kiss on the cheek. Between girls, they kiss on the cheek
too and if men know each other really well, they do it too. Just an interesting
culture thought.

Hopefully next week I’ll be able to put pictures
up because I have a lot.